Balancing Fighters, Missiles and PDC in the late game

[Grand Lord Vito]

Originally posted by oleg:

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Originally posted by geoschmo:

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Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
How about making it so that only fighters can shoot down missiles

Then they'll both be critical to long term success, without making direct fire weapons obsolete.

Hmmmmm, interesting. Is that a new idea? I don't think I have heard it before. That would certainly make the game more interesting. You'd have to have a mix of ships for sure.

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AIC has healthy elements of it. There you can create a dedicated interceptor deadly to fighters and missiles but unable to target ships.

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You can set up a medium or large AIC fighter to attack ships, bases, planets, other fighters and Missiles.
Like Oleg said the small intercepter is very good at the AntiFighter, AntiSat, antiMissile and Antidrone combat role.

[Chronon]

Thanks everyone, for all the good ideas about fighters and seekers. It sounds as if a combination of less effective PDC and hardier seekers may be the best solution. But finding the correct balance will be the tough part.

Thanks, also, for the tip on mounts and component families. Problem solved!

Here's another question to throw into the mix: If you were going to play a space exploration game in a Civ/SMAC style universe, what types of things (facilities, weapons, characteristics, etc.) would you like to see?

[oleg]

Originally posted by deccan:
...I know that fighters rock in Proportions, but how does Proportions make seekers more viable?

It does, IMHO, but not directly. Just my impression but I yhink it is related to the long Lasting benefits of smaller ships. It decrease the effect of direct-fire weapon mounts on the game balance and the concentration of PDC on one target.

Also, Proportions has Light Missile System that can make wonders saturating PDC.

[PvK]

Seekers are more viable in Proportions due to several factors:

* Light Missile Systems fire seekers up to about four times faster per kT than Cap missiles.

* Small ships are inexpensive to maintain and have good defense bonuses, so small missile ships can be fast, economical, defensive and cheap (don't need CS or ECM).

* Good fleets include small ships, which can mount less PD and are hard to hit with direct-fire, so missiles are good against them.

* Higher-tech proportions drones are also potent and PD-soaking.

* Fighters are very PD-soaking, so a fleet using both fighters and seekers can easily overwhelm PDC. This is one reason why Proportions offers self-defense cannon, which are cheap range-one defenses against missiles, of almost no use against fighters.

PvK

[PvK]

LMS I think also gets to be smaller than a PDC, and not all PDC will be in range to hit all the seekers. Moreover, fly just a few fighters around, and they tend to attract the PDC, meaning the ships need SDC, which only has range 1, etc.

Anyway, in my experience, I think it works pretty well, although of course there could be tweaks made, depending on how you want things to balance out.

PvK

[Chronon]

Thanks Oleg and PvK for your advice about using light missiles. PvK, may I take some of your ideas from Proportions and transplant them into Civilizations Mod (my working title)? In other words, may I steal them from you?

[PvK]

Yes, certainly!

PvK

[Fyron]

You might want to reduce the ability of fighters to be overly-powerful like in Proportions though... even those special anti-Fighter PDCs from Energy Pulse Weapons don't help much.

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by PvK:
* Light Missile Systems fire seekers up to about four times faster per kT than Cap missiles.

Of course, since PDC fires every round, it can still kill the light missiles as easily as it kills the regular missiles - it's just doing it every turn instead of waiting two turns in between shots Perhaps if PDC only fired every other round...

[ November 04, 2003, 12:18: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

[oleg]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:

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Originally posted by PvK:
* Light Missile Systems fire seekers up to about four times faster per kT than Cap missiles.

Of course, since PDC fires every round, it can still kill the light missiles as easily as it kills the regular missiles - it's just doing it every turn instead of waiting two turns in between shots Perhaps if PDC only fired every other round...

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LMS and CSM operate as separate stacks and PD damage does not transfer from one to another. Thus, if PDC fires on LMS, it is out of use for that round and CSM can reach the ship. It really helps to have one LMS on almost evry ship to distract PDC from fighters and CSM.